In The Silent Sister, Riley MacPherson has spent her entire life believing that her older sister Lisa committed suicide as a teenager. Now, over twenty years later, her father has passed away and she’s in New Bern, North Carolina cleaning out his house when she finds evidence to the contrary. Lisa is alive. Alive and living under a new identity. But why exactly was she on the run all those years ago, and what secrets are being kept now? As Riley works to uncover the truth, her discoveries will put into question everything she thought she knew about her family. Riley must decide what the past means for her present, and what she will do with her newfound reality.

I liked parts of this book, but I really didn’t like the ending or its overall message.

For starters, it was pretty easy to figure out what happened and why. I was right on about 90% of it. I kept listening to the audiobook to make sure I was right, but if I’d had the actual book I would have flipped to the end to check, and I kind of wish I had.

**MILD SPOILER**

I won’t tell you exactly what happened, but I will tell you there’s not a satisfying ending (for me, anyway). This is one of those places where I can see a big difference in the Christian and general markets. This being a general market book, no one does the right thing in the end, they just do the right thing for themselves. Everyone lies to each other. There’s very little empathy or grace for other people. In the end, it’s okay to hurt people if they hurt you first. If A hurts B, then B can hurt A. If hurting A hurts C, then C should forgive B, but B is never expected to forgive A.

All in all, the characters are willing to lie, hurt, and destroy if they think it’s right. It’s sad to me that people think that way, and I hate seeing it accepted in literature.

Overall it was an okay book, but it was predictable and you have to be willing to accept “do as I say, don’t do as I do” in order to really enjoy the ending.

R-rated for language and violence. Get your copy here.